The present invention relates to review work for observing products in process and parts, and more particularly to a system for supporting review work that verifies outward appearance of dust particles and pattern defects on surfaces of a semiconductor wafer, a photo mask, a magnetic disk, and the like.
In semiconductor manufacturing processes, a dust particle and a pattern defect on a surface of a wafer cause a product defect. Therefore, it is necessary to quantify dust particles and pattern defects (hereinafter referred to as visual defect), and to continuously monitor whether or not there are problems in production equipment and production environment. Moreover, by observing a shape of the visual defect, it is necessary to verify whether or not a visual defect will exert critical influence on a product.
Because of microminiaturization relating to a semiconductor device, capability and performance enough to detect a minuter visual defect are required for an inspecting apparatus. Responding to such request, an inspecting apparatus, which can detect a visual defect with high sensitivity, is emerging. Review work for observing a shape of a visual defect on the basis of an enormous amount of defect information extracted by such an inspecting apparatus is important for improvement in yields.
Conventionally, such review work for observing a shape was often performed by manual operation. Because of it, there were the following problems: positions of defects as review targets deviated depending on an observer; and defects, which should be reviewed, were not uniformly determined. Recently, for the purpose of solving the problems, the following techniques have been introduced: ADR (Automatic Defect Review); and ADC (Automatic Defect Classification).
As regards inventions that improve efficiency in defect review, those disclosed in {circle around (1)} Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 7-92094, {circle around (2)} Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 9-191032, {circle around (3)} Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 11-214462, {circle around (4)} Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-332071, and the like, are known.
Because sensitivity of an inspecting apparatus becomes higher, detection of a minute defect becomes possible. As a result of it, the number of detected defects is enormously growing. Therefore, it is impossible to observe all of the defects one by one during the so-called review work for verifying a shape of a visual defect. In order to use the automation technique described above effectively, a technique for appropriately extracting information on defects as review targets from defect information, which has been obtained from an inspecting apparatus, is required.
The invention, which was disclosed in each of the official gazettes, is not enough to increase efficiency in the review work.